Abdul Halik Azeez

Abdul Halik Azeez was born in Nawalapitiya, Sri Lanka and lives and works in Colombo. A multidisciplinary artist and organizer, his work extrapolates on post-war transformations that have impacted his country such as urbanization and gentrification, desires for progress and success, evolving forms of ethnic conflict and the in/tangible terraforming enacted by tourism.

In 2019, he co-founded The Packet, a collective of emerging artists from Sri Lanka which embraces playfulness and intimacy as integral parts of the artistic process. 

Prior to the arts Azeez worked as a journalist, economist, development sector consultant and as an academic researching hate speech in the media. He holds an MA in Financial Economics from the University of Colombo (2011) and an MA in English Literature and Linguistics from the University of Granada (2017).

His installations, films and publications have most recently been presented at The Asia Pacific Triennial (2024), Breda Photo (2024), Videobrasil (2023), Berlinale (2023) and documenta fifteen (2022). He has received residencies, fellowships and grants from The Delfina Foundation (2025), Akademie Schloss Solitude (2025-2026), Prince Claus Fund (2023) and the Sharjah Art Foundation (2022).

Amol K Patil

To Amol Patil, a conceptual and performance artist based in Mumbai, his artwork is an ongoing excavation and investigation to recapture the pulsating, vibrating movements and sound of the ‘chawl’ architecture and habitus. Amol grew up in an area of ‘chawls’, a built form specific to Bombay/Mumbai 5 storey social housing for mill and factory workers that were built in the early 1900s, with many tenements fit close together, long verandahs connecting every door, with children running on floorboards above, the swirls of gossiping voices from dimly lit tables under which men gather to play carrom, the woman with a walking stick, the sound of termites eating into wood, wedding festivities, and rhythmically creaking beds.

Amol was born in Mumbai. After his education in visual arts, he initiated and was part of many practices with collective formations. It is in this dynamic ambience that he became interested in the crossover of performance art, kinetic installation, and video installation. He was intellectually drawn to the shaping of social systems and taxonomies of memory. From his family archive, Amol stages live settings, such as where a tape runs a conversation between a machine, a siren, and a mosquito, where the sound of the machine and the siren are recordings made by his father, an inheritance from someone long gone. The mosquito is of his time. Such settings of imaginary conversations of energies engage and transform not

just each other, but all that comes in contact with them.

After discovering his affinity for performance art, he grappled to understand his father’s work as a theatre activist. He encountered objects in old cupboards in his home, an old dictaphone tape recorder, a walkman, and cassettes filled with sounds and immigrant dialects that his father recorded for his typed, grassroots, avant-garde theatre scripts about the dilemma of living as a migrant in the city, and which he performed within the industrial mill areas of Bombay. He found, as well, handwritten songs of his poet grandfather. The songs come from a protest tradition since the 17th century called ‘Powada’, much in use before and after national independence, still found today, which are not so much to sing, but a rap form spitting out furious words against the caste system, and the revolutionary words of Dr BR Ambedkar, the Dalit thinker who gave India roads out of caste and towards social equality and, as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution of the Republic of India inscribed equality, liberty, and justice for all its citizens.

In his recent work, Amol is expanding his research on the construct of urbanization and invisibility of the working class in emergent urban imaginaries. His project is to build counter-memory and contesting narratives that describe and disturb the relationship between humans and landscapes.

Amol K Patil (b. 1987, Mumbai) has shown at Gwangju Biennale 2024, Hayward Gallery in London 2023, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, in Brussels 2023, Documenta Fifteen , Kassel, Germany, 2022, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India 2022-2023, Yokohama Triennale (Yokohama, 2020); Goethe- Institute / Max Mueller Bhavan (Mumbai, 2019), Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan (New Delhi, 2019), The Showroom (London, 2018), Tensta kunsthall (Stockholm, 2017), Pompidou (Paris, 2017), Pune Biennale Habit-co Habit (Pune, 2017), New Galerie (Paris, 2016), Japan Foundation (Delhi, 2015); Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2015), Kadist Art Foundation, (Paris, 2013).

-Text by Zasha Colah

Aziz Hazara

Aziz Hazara (b.1992 Wardak, Afghanistan), lives and works between Kabul and Berlin. He works across various media such as video installation, photography, sound, and sculpture. His work addresses the relationship between various dichotomies such as proximity and distance, reality and fiction, war and peace amongst many others. He intends to address what it is to live in a war zone where the body and the landscape are inherently in conflict.

Select exhibitions include: The 18th Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement: A Cosmic Movie Camera” at Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, 2024; Rhizome – Network Without Center PointKunsthal Aarhus, 2024; No Starting Point for Revolution, Experimenter, Kolkata, 2023; Condemnation, ICA Milano, 2023; No Dress Code, PSM Berlin, 2023; Is It Morning for You Yet?, The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, USA, 2022; It’s Only Sound That Remains, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, 2022; Penumbra Expanded, MAXXI, Rome, 2022; Penumbra, Fondazione In Between Art Film, Ospedaletto & Church of Santa Maria dei Derelitti, Venice, 2022; Gardens as Thought Form: Lexicons for Revolution, Experimenter, Kolkata, 2021; Words At An Exhibition: An Exhibition In Ten Chapters And Five Poems, Busan Biennale in Busan, South Korea, 2020; NIRIN, 22nd Biennale of Sydney in Sydney, Australia, 2020; No End in Sight, Hessel Museum of Art Bard College, in New York, USA, 2020; Kharmohra, at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM) in Marseille, France, 2019; amongst others. 

He has also participated in various residential programmes, such as Colomboscope in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, 2021; the Embassy of Foreign Artists (EoFA), Geneva, Switzerland, 2020; the Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France, 2019; and KHOJ International Artists’ Association, New Delhi, India, 2017. Hazara received the main prize of the 6th Edition of the Future Generation Art Prize hosted by the PinchukArtCentre (2021).

CAMP

CAMP is a collaborative studio founded in Mumbai in 2007 by Ashok Sukumaran and Shaina Anand. Their fundamental work in video and film, electronic media and public art forms over the past 15 years, has shown how deep technical experimentation and artistic form can meet while extracting new qualities and experiences from contemporary life and materials.From their home base in Mumbai, they co-host the online archives pad.ma (est. 2008) and indiancine.ma (est. 2013) and run a rooftop cinema for the past 14 years. CAMP’s artworks have been exhibited worldwide, including recent solo exhibitions at the Nam June Paik Art Center (2021); Argos Center for Art and Media, Brussels and De Appel Gallery, Amsterdam (2019); Skulptur Projekte Munster (2017); documenta 13 (2012) and documenta 14 film programme (2017); on the streets and markets of Bengaluru, San Jose, Dakar, Mexico City, Jerusalem, Kolkata,Kabul, Delhi, Ljubljana, Sharjah and Mumbai. They have also participated in the biennials of Shanghai, Gwangju, Taipei,Singapore, Liverpool, Chicago, Lahore, Sharjah (2009, 2011, 2013) and Kochi-Muziris as well as film platforms, such as the BFI London Film Festival, Viennale, FID Marseille, Flaherty Seminar and the Anthology Film Archives and in art institutions, such as Khoj, Sarai-CSDS, KNMA, Lalit Kala Akademi and NGMA New Delhi, Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, MoMA, New Museum, Queens Museum and e-flux New York, Tate Modern, Serpentine Galleries and Gasworks London, HKW Berlin, Ars Electronica, Linz, MoMA Warsaw, Ashkal Alwan Beirut, Palestinian Museum and Birzeit.

They have received the 7th Nam June Paik Centre Prize (2020).

Karachi LaJamia

Karachi LaJamia was founded in 2015 by artists Shahana Rajani and Zahra Malkani as a nomadic space moving outside the institution to explore new radical pedagogies and art practices. They have facilitated a series of site-specific courses and collaborative research projects to explore the intersections of militarism, climate crisis, indigenous dispossession, and knowledge production in Karachi. Their courses are developed in close collaboration with local organisations and activists to build solidarity with ongoing struggles around land, water and development in the city.

Lida Abdul

Kabul, 1973.

Lives and works in Los Angeles and Kabul.

The first artist of her country to represent Afghanistan at the 51st edition of the Venice Biennale in 2005, she was then selected to participate in numerous other Biennales and Triennales: São Paulo Biennial 2006; Gwangju Biennial 2006; Moscow Biennial 2007; Sharjah Biennial 2007; Göteborg Biennial 2007; Venice Biennale 2015; Busan Biennale 2016; Istanbul Biennial 2022. Her work has also been presented at: Istanbul Modern, Istanbul; Kunsthalle, Vienna; Museum of Modern Art, Arnhem; Miami Central, Miami; ICA Toronto, Toronto; ZKM Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe; Capc, Bordeaux; CAC, Brétigny; Frac Lorraine, Metz; Musée Chagall, Nice; National Museum, Kabul; Tate Modern, London; MOMA, New York; Location One, New York; OK Centrum for Contemporary Art, Linz; Western Front Exhibitions and Centre A, Vancouver; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis; Royal Academy of Arts, London; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Zentrum Paul Klee, Berne; Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem; Louis Vuitton Espace, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; CAC, Málaga; Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris; MART, Rovereto; Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Fondazione Merz, Torino; CAP, Lyon; Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei; National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. She has won the Taiwan Award (2005), the Premio Pino Pascali (2005), the Prince Claus Award (2006), as well as the UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts (2007). She was a finalist of the First Edition of the Mario Merz Prize (2015).

Her work appears in numerous public and private collections, including the Frac Lorraine, Metz; GAM – Torino, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; the MOMA, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE.

Madiha Aijaz

In her films, photography and writing Madiha Aijaz (1981-2019, Pakistan) explored how people experience pleasure and privacy in reordered urban spaces. She was a recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship (2010) and the ROSL Visual Arts fellowship (2017). She obtained an MFA in Photography from Parsons – The New School for Design, NY. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including - Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver Canada (2020), London Indian Film Festival (2019), Chobi Mela X in Dhaka Bangaldesh (2019), International Film Festival of Rotterdam (2019 and 2020), Liverpool Bienniale, Lahore Biennele, Karachi Biennale, Kochi Biennale, Urban Flux Film Festival Johannesburg, Art Jameel Dubai (2023) and IAWRT Asian Women's Film Festival New Delhi.

Malik Irtiza

Malik Irtiza is an independent artist and researcher. Her work traverses across various media such as installation, video, sound, text and sculpture. Situated at the intersection of artistic speculation and historical enquiry, her work seeks to develop possibilities of looking at times and voids in contested territories. Her educational background is in History and Visual Arts, and is currently based in Srinagar, Kashmir. Irtiza has exhibited both in India and internationally; “Bare Acts" Prameya Art Foundation. Shrine Empire. Delhi. India 2023, "Nine nodes of Non Being" Gallery 421, Abu Dhabi 2023, "The time has always been now, ACT I". Screening at Art House Cinema Zita. Stockholm, Sweden 2023.  She has been a part of many residential programs like Inlaks - Unidee Award for International Artists' Residency in Biella, Italy 2023, residency at HH Art Spaces. Goa. Irtiza was awarded National Award, Students Biennale - Kochi Muziris Biennale 2022-23 and Emerging Artist Award awarded by Foundation of Indian Contemporary Art 2022.

Mekh Limbu

Mekh Limbu (b. 1985) is an artist based in Kathmandu by way of Dhankuta. Belonging to the Adivasi-Janajati Limbu community, his work often addresses the geopolitical fractures that stretch and shape Indigeneity. His use of archival matter is grounded in a need for the intergenerational transfer of language, ritual, and memory. His works also document the ramifications of Nepal’s labour migration industry on his family, underscoring the estrangement of traditional kinship structures. His video work ‘Mangdem’ma-an invocation for the healing of adivasi spirits and lands’ was screened at Tate Modern, London, Kochi Muziris Biennale 2022-23 and Biennale Jogja 17 (2024). He has exhibited at Waley Art, Taipei (2019); Weltmusem Wien, Vienna (2019); Kathmandu Triennale (2017); Moesgaard Museum, Aarhus (2016); and the Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa (2016). Alongside his collective, Artree Nepal, he has also been a part of Kathmandu Triennale (2022), Dhaka Art Summit (2020), and Biennale of Sydney (2020).

Sonia Khurana

Sonia Khurana works with photo, video, performance, text, drawing, sound, music, voice, architecture, installation.

Working with a discourse of power that is deliberately tangential, she structures the self through states of strangeness, alienation, displacement and embodiment. She strives to engage with constant negotiations between body and language, the self and the world. Through these deliberately poetic intimations, she tries to persistently explore and re-define the space of the political.

Sonia studied art in London [Royal College of Art, M.F.A., 1999] and earlier in Delhi [ Delhi College of art M.F.A., 1993] and in Amsterdam, a two-year Residency Programme for practice-based research at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten [2002]

Sonia Khurana’s single channel video Bird, produced in 1999 while she was at the Royal College of Arts in London placed her both within the feminist discourse, and for working primarily with moving image. She is one of India’s most discussed artists using performance, the body and digital media, to explore situational contexts and underlying realities.

Her works have been shown in globally, in notable exhibitions, such as elles@Centre Pompidou (2009/2010), in the United States during the Global Feminisms exhibition in Brooklyn (2007), and in several biennales including the Aichi triennale (2010),  Liverpool biennale [2010], the Busan biennale (2004) and the Gwangju biennale (2008) as well as appearing in the seminal exhibition “West Heavens” in Shanghai (2010).

Sonia lives in Delhi, and is currently a visiting professor at Ashoka University in India.

Sudha Padmaja Francis

Sudha Padmaja Francis is a filmmaker, visual artist, researcher from Kerala, India. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Anthropology at IIT Palakkad. She graduated with a Masters in Creative Enterprise(Film) from the University of Reading, UK in September 2017. She is a recipient of the Felix scholarship for 2016-2017. She has made a short fiction film for her dissertation which won the National Award in in 2017  and a few documentary films which screened at many international film festivals.  She is a consistent contributor to The Crown Letter Project, an  international art weekly web magazine put together by various international women artists, since the onset of the lockdown in March 2020. Some of her video works have showed at Argentinian Biennale (Bienal Sur), Photo Days Paris, Institut français de Prague, Institute  of France (Kyoto) as part of Crown Letter group exhibitions. Her video essay Walkway premiered at Oberhausen film festival in 2022. She has published her poetry and translations in various journals.  Her recent feature length documentary film Ginger Biscuit  is screening at film festivals and other platforms.

Tareque and Catherine Masud

Tareque Masud (6 December 1956 – 13 August 2011) was a Bangladeshi independent film director, film producer, screenwriter and lyricist. He first found success with the films Muktir Gaan (1995) and Matir Moina (2002), for which he won three international awards, including the International Critics' FIPRESCI Prize, in the Directors' Fortnight at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. The film became Bangladesh's first film to compete for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Masud died in a road accident on 13 August 2011 while returning to Dhaka from Manikganj on the Dhaka-Aricha highway after visiting a filming location. Masud was working on Kagojer Phool (The Paper Flower).

In 2012, he posthumously received Ekushey Padak, the second-highest civilian award of Bangladesh. In 2013, New York University Asian/Pacific/American Institute, and South Asia Solidarity Initiative, hosted the first North American retrospective of his films

Catherine Masud is an award-winning filmmaker and educator, with 30 years of production experience in fiction and documentary. Much of that time has been spent working internationally, in challenging and diverse environments, primarily in Bangladesh. As a producer/director/writer/editor, her work has won awards at Cannes and other international festivals and competed at the Oscars. After her partner Tareque Masud's demise in 2011, she’s worked to memorialize his work by the archiving and preservation of his work, and the completion of their unfinished oeuvre. Since 2015 she’s been based full-time in the US, where Catherine has continued her professional work as a filmmaker while engaging in teaching, lecturing, and advocacy. She continues to embrace projects that address the pressing conflicts of our times while also recognizing the common humanity that binds us and defines us.